In some types of databases, such as relational databases, a query plan optimizer uses statistics about the database's data. In response to receiving a query, multiple query plans are generated about how to search the database. The query plan optimizer makes decisions about which of these query plans will result in searching the database according to the terms in the search query in a minimal amount of time. Reliance on database statistics allows a search query optimizer to select query plans without having to calculate information about the database's data from scratch.